VIDEO: Joe Parker's decades-long fascination with bugs and beetles led to his recent appointment as an assistant professor at Caltech. As an entomologist, he studies particular species of beetle that can help us answer some of the fundamental questions of evolution.

A Conversation with Caltech Entomologist Joe Parker

New assistant professor of biology Joe Parker discusses his lifelong love of insects and explains how a tiny kind of beetle can answer fundamental questions of evolution.

Not many people get to turn their childhood hobby into a career, but when Joe Parker began collecting insects at the age of 7, he simply never stopped. Parker took his childhood fascination with insects to the next level, amassing a diverse and pristine collection from the Welsh countryside surrounding his hometown of Swansea in the United Kingdom. It was only natural for him to turn this love of insects into a career, and, in 2017, Parker arrived at Caltech as an assistant professor of biology and an affiliated faculty member of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. He now focuses on small species of beetle that have the potential to answer fundamental questions of evolution.